


Don't Stop Breathing

by Ezra_Oleson



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Armin Arlert - Freeform, Gen, Space AU, attack on titan - Freeform, historia reiss - Freeform, krista lenz - Freeform, shingeki no kyojin - Freeform, snk, snk space au, ymir - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezra_Oleson/pseuds/Ezra_Oleson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught in a devastating catastrophe in deep space, Colin Halloway and the Scouting League are forced to go to drastic lengths to reconnect with their homeworld of Earth. However, space-borne Titans riddle their path, and they find it necessary to fight through the stars to achieve their goal of landfall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“We’re getting the carrier out of orbit,” called the commander, his voice rough over the radio system. “Hold off the beasts as long as it takes to get us out of here. Regroup when the operation is finished.”

Malcolm Halsey cursed, and took refuge behind a drifting plate of scorched steel. “Commander Arlert, we’ll need more than this to fend them off.” He patiently waited for a response, and hit the suit thrusters when a smaller titan rounded the corner. Barely man-sized.

The commander’s response was slow. “Just do your best, soldiers.” 

At that, the radio crackled into silence, and Malcolm slashed at the grinning titan with his glowing emerald blade. The titan’s skin was a ghostly grey, its eyes lighting up orange as it came closer to death, black blood spilling into open space from the wound that Malcolm had inflicted.

He kicked off from the lifeless beast, and picked his way through the wreckage of a burnt-out troop carrier. When Malcolm reached the other end, drifting through a blackened doorway, he came face-to-face with a 15-meter class. It moved swiftly, snapping up soldiers that didn’t move fast enough. Malcolm hit his thrusters wordlessly, charged up the dual energy blades, and made a quick move to the titan’s neck. His attack went unnoticed, however, as he was pushed aside by another, smaller beast. It made a slash to his torso, but Malcolm sliced off its head with a lightning-fast uppercut.

But just as he was turning to face the larger enemy, a piece of steel hit Malcolm’s visor, made a web of cracks. His eyes widened, just as he was gulped up by a toothy maw. The red burst was visible only when the titan bit down.

“Another down!” I shouted. “Another down! Call in for backup!”

My call went unnoticed, though. The others just swarmed the titan, until finally, a glowing blade cut into its neck, and it flailed, lifeless. No other beasts were there to be seen. It was then that I surveyed the scenery.

A planet. Luminous blue atmosphere ringing it, fluffy clouds and flashing storm, ochre deserts and cyan seas far below, one side illuminated by a net of lights and the other by the light of the sun. A spattering of black space junk and wreckage was seen all around us, and my squadron stayed still as we watched the last remaining troop carrier slowly drift away.

Commander Arlert’s voice sounded in all of our headsets. “We lost some of our best in that fight,” he said solemnly. “But for now, it’s clear. The fight still rages on down below, and we are doing our best to stop the enemy in space. I thank you all for your service. Now, board this craft, and you will all be given your next duty.”

The last troop carrier expelled a blast of steam from its vents, and the rear cargo hold doors hissed open. We all shuffled in, and there were probably less than ten of us. I shivered. I still checked over my shoulder as the doors closed, then the room was filled with breathable air. I turned back to the door that led to the pilot’s cabin. The door slid open, and a tall, dark-skinned woman stepped through, black hair tied back. She surveyed us with a flat expression, and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Take a seat, strap yourselves in, and relieve your gear for recharging,” Ymir enunciated sharply. “Due next site in thirty minutes. Watch your clocks.”


	2. Titan

I found that space was infinitely terrifying when one couldn't hear things. It took a few moments for our radios to boot up after discharge, and as I drifted away from the craft, it was just my breath and my heartbeat. Then the radio kicked in, and I heard the roll call.

"Again. Sig-beep if you're on," Officer Cade ordered. I heard a chorus of beeps, and I signaled my own. "All accounted for," Cade continued. "We have a severe-grade adversary around this next piece of junk. Very large. It's sleeping, but like the other queens, it's got a cesspool of smaller beasts inside its stomach. Mop up stragglers as the techies prepare a bomb."

I rounded the shattered shuttle and pushed past another cloud of space junk. And there it was. A hulking, stone-gray beast, clinging to an old satellite. The emerald glow of energy blades shone around me, and I knew that we were in for a fight. The smaller titans huddled around the queen slowly turned to face us, opening their dark mouths, baring tombstone teeth. I shuddered at the sight of their amber eyes lighting up. Miniature spotlights. They prepared to kick off the queen, and I longed for Earth below. But I knew that they couldn't help us. We were the furthest arm of the Legion. The last hope, as advertised.

The titans burst from the queen and shot toward us, spiraling through space. I fired my thrusters and wheeled up and over one, stabbing in a metal-bladed knife to get some friction. The thing dragged me with it, and I primed my left-handed energy blade for a boiler attack. Fifth setting. Arguably the most painful. I swung around and slashed at the titan's grasping hand, burning through the flesh and turning it to foul vapor. The sick part about them is that they're already extremely hot. I supposed it helped them from exploding in a zero-gravity environment. Nobody had been able to figure out their chemistry. Ignoring the science of it, I detached and slammed my hilt down blade-first, breaking the thing's skull and liquefying its bones. Done for. I glanced back to the queen and I saw that the real fight was back there. All the runner titans were just bait. I cursed myself and thrusted back.

I checked my batteries and continued. Good percentage. The only discernible disadvantage of space gear was that the charge ran out quickly. One was better off glancing off asteroids and space junk than actually using their thrusters. It didn't help that the energy blades burned through their own batteries pretty fast too. Starfighters were just little people strapped onto big Duracells. Glorify us as you may, but it won't change anything. Having the electricity integrity of a mainstream cell phone was nothing to brag about. I dismembered and decapitated three small titans before moving to defend the bomb squad, who always found it necessary to move extremely slowly. Flashes of accelerator rifles went off around me. They didn't help one focus either.

Legion bombs always looked the same - heavy steel canisters doused in ash-colored and bloodred paint with a gleaming copper tip. A bomb the size of one's head could take down a building. A bomb the size of two heads could burst a mama titan. I glanced to the queen. Her ugly face was clenched in an expression of cruel concentration, and a myriad of tiny beasts clung to her like baby pigs clinging onto their lactating mother. I put the thought out of my head and instead focused on defending the four men and women dressed in the space-appropriate version of lab-coats. The forest green logo of crossed swords adorned their thruster packs, and red crosses signified them as Special Fragiles. A lot of the Starfighters liked to call them Fine China, but it was, in my opinion, a romanticization. They insisted on doing nothing. Even delivering a bomb to a gray-skinned giant was a stretch. They carried pistols, but it was only for looks. They weren't trained in any definition of the word.

After a lot of close calls and panicked shouting, we finally reached the queen. Her stony skin was pockmarked and scarred and sunburned, so I knew that she was an old one. Probably rode a comet over here when she still moved. The driller punched a hole in the crust and we slid the bomb in, locking it in. After a brief inspection, we thrusted away and ordered the rest to return to the shuttle. I swung inside the cargo bay and the doors shut. We huddled against the thick polymer windows and watched as the bomb went off. It lit up a slow, curling red, and then there was a pinpoint of blinding white spot that expanded and spread out, enveloping the queen titan. Her stony skin curled into ash and the wrecked space shuttle very well melted. Our own shuttle pulled away, firing blue engines, and we finally returned to the safe rocket-locker of home-sweet-home. Blessed Resolve, the starcruiser that we all loved. Blessed Resolve normally stayed near Earth to block dropper titans and dropper colonies, but I'd recently heard rumors about a mission far off. Near Neptune, even. Or farther away. The good news was that we got to hear Commander Arlert speak on the bridge. The bad news was that Commander Arlert was speaking on the bridge. I was equally excited and anxious. A common mix.

Our shuttle docked, the airlocks hissed, and the metal doors slid open to reveal our rocket locker. I shrugged off my thruster pack, unsealed my helmet, and steeled myself for what was to come.


End file.
